One winter’s night, and drunk again, James Dow realised there was a real risk that his relationship with alcohol could take him to a dark place. With the festive season approaching, when the drink flows more freely than ever, he Googled “alcoholism and Christmas” – and one of the things he came across was Crisis at Christmas, the initiative that offers people who are homeless a place to spend the holiday season.
“I knew straightaway that I wanted to volunteer,” he says. “Often volunteers joke that they’re helping because there’s nothing on TV. But for me, the truth was, and I think it’s true for a lot of volunteers, that I had come close to homelessness, knew how life could be, and didn’t want somebody else to be in that situation.”
